{"id":134,"date":"2008-01-17T11:47:53","date_gmt":"2008-01-17T15:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=134"},"modified":"2008-01-17T11:47:53","modified_gmt":"2008-01-17T15:47:53","slug":"im-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/17\/im-back\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m back …"},"content":{"rendered":"

… and I missed something right in my wheelhouse, a comparison of baseball to classic movies. From Buster Olney, by way of Fire Joe Morgan<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

If you want to quibble with the fact that he won the award in 1978, or with his placement in some particular year, OK, I get that. But to ignore the MVP voting entirely, as if it isn’t at least some kind of barometer of his play over the course of his career, is embarrassing. This is like saying, “Hey, forget the Oscar voting of the 1950s. Marlon Brando was clearly overrated.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I think that’s a fabulous idea. Let’s compare the mindblowing stupidity of MVP voting to the mindblowing stupidity of Oscar voting. For example, guess how many combined non-honorary Oscars Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, and Federico Fellini won?<\/p>\n

One.<\/p>\n

That’s right – just one, won by Welles, for writing the screenplay to Citizen Kane<\/i>. Three of the greatest directors in the history of motion pictures died with a total of zero Best Director statues.<\/p>\n

Citizen Kane<\/i> itself was nominated for best picture (one of ten in 1942), but lost to How Green Was My Valley<\/i>. When the American Film Institute published its list of the 100 best movies of the 20th century, Citizen Kane<\/i> was #1. How Green Was My Valley<\/i> wasn’t on the list.<\/p>\n

Paul Newman didn’t win a Best Actor Oscar until 1986, for The Color of Money<\/i>, a Lifetime Achievement Award in all but name. Cary Grant never won an Oscar. Humphrey Bogart won one, for The African Queen<\/i>, but not for Casablanca<\/i>, a movie that didn’t yield a single win in any of the four acting categories. Peter O’Toole never won an Oscar; he was nominated for Lawrence of Arabia<\/i> but lost to Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird<\/i>. Audrey Hepburn won once, for Roman Holiday<\/i>, but wasn’t even nominated for My Fair Lady<\/i> in one of the most blatantly political votes in the history of the Oscars. (The award went to Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins<\/i>; Andrews starred in the Broadway version of My Fair Lady<\/i> but was replaced by Hepburn for the film.)<\/p>\n

Stanley Kubrick won one Oscar, for Best Effects\/Special Visual Effects for 2001<\/i>, but was 0-for-3 as a director. An American in Paris<\/i> beat out A Streetcar Named Desire<\/i> (which was nominated) and The African Queen<\/i> (which wasn’t) for Best Picture in 1952, while Singin’ in the Rain<\/i> – an infinitely better picture than An American in Paris<\/i>, and possibly the best musical ever – received just a pair of minor nominations two years later. Stanley Donen was never even nominated<\/b> for an Oscar.<\/p>\n

Consider some of the best contemporary figures too. Johnny Depp has just two nominations and no wins. Nicole Kidman has one, for The Hours<\/i>. Martin Scorsese has just one Best Director win, this past year for The Departed<\/i>. And everyone knows how long it took Steven Spielberg to win his first Best Director award – long enough that he won the Irving Thalberg Award first.<\/p>\n

So yes, please, let’s compare MVP voting to Best Picture\/Director\/Actor voting. We could argue all day about which is worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… and I missed something right in my wheelhouse, a comparison of baseball to classic movies. From Buster Olney, by way of Fire Joe Morgan: If you want to quibble with the fact that he won the award in 1978, or with his placement in some particular year, OK, I get that. But to ignore […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-sports","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}